Wednesday, November 25, 2015

This is the time of the year in the U.S. that we celebrate Thanksgiving, a holiday meant to remind us of all the people and things in our lives that we have to be thankful for. Despite the turmoil in the world, I do feel very thankful for my family, my work, and the friends I share my life with.

I'm also very thankful for ExhibiTricks Readers and Subscribers! I really appreciate the thousands of you who read this blog each and every week. If you ever have ideas or suggestions for ExhibiTricks, feel free to email me.

And now, without further ado, here is one of my favorite posts about ways of thanking our donors, community supporters, and stakeholders:

Many Ways To Say Thanks

Most donor recognition installations in museums are really ways to say thanks. And who could argue with that?

But you can thank someone with the equivalent of a cheap mass-produced card you grabbed on your way home, or with the donor recognition version of a homemade loaf of bread accompanied by a carefully chosen book inscribed to the recipient.

Last month I asked museum folks for images of interesting and thoughtful examples of donor recognition. I received an avalanche of images --- many more than I'll include in this post, so I've gathered all the images that I've received into a free PDF available for download from the POW! website.

Just click on the "Free Exhibit Resources" link near the center-top of any page on the website, and you'll see an entire collection of free goodies, including the newly added link called "Donor Recognition Examples." Once you click on the link you'll get the PDF of images. (Be patient --- it's a BIG file.)

So what sorts of images and examples of donor recognition did I receive? They fell into several larger categories, namely:

So let's take each of the six categories and show a few examples of each.

FRAMES and PLAQUES

I'm sure you've seen lots of bad examples of this donor recognition approach, but there is a lot to be said for the simplicity (and creative twists!) that can be employed using this technique.

The image at the top of this post is a nice example of "helping hands" (but still essentially plaques) in this category from the Chicago Children's Museum.

I like the use of colors and the physical arrangements in the following two examples. The first pair of images comes from the Children's Museum of Pittsburgh (with bonus colored shadows!)

The next is a sert of back-lit elements designed by Skolnick A+D Partnership for the Children's Museum of Virginia --- The entire unit is essentially one big lightbox!

Light is also used as a strong element in the image below from Macalester College. The folks from Blasted Art used Rosco's Lite Pad product to create the glowing text.

Lastly, I like this simple example from the MonDak Heritage Center. Just frames, but it does the job nicely.

WALLS and FLOORS

Sometimes donor recognition wants to be BIG, in an architectural sense, so interior or exterior walls are used --- and sometimes even floors!

Here are two exterior wall examples that stood out. The first from the Creative Discovery Museum

And the second from the Oakland Museum. They are both colorful and animate nicely what would otherwise be a big blank wall.

Here's a nice interior wall from Discovery Gateway, in Salt Lake City

Each of the pieces is back-laminated graphics on acrylic. (Here's a detail.)

Of course, even the best-laid donor recognition plans can get circumvented by operational issues!

And lastly, here's a floor example from The National Museum of Nuclear Science and History. It's the Periodic Table with donors in each element.

GENRE SPECIFIC

Several people sent examples of genre specific donor recognition designs. A popular motif is to use collection objects or images, especially in the case of Natural History Museums.

Here is the Specimen Wall from the California Academy of Sciences. It's an elegant low-tech solution that features specimen reproductions encased in laminated glass. The wall was conceived by Kit Hinrichs and realized in collaboration with Kate Keating Associates, with fabrication by Martinelli Environmental Graphics and glass by Ostrom Glassworks.

Here's a clever use of old school tabletop jukeboxes to recognize donors to radio station WXPN put together by Metcalfe Architecture & Design in Philadelphia.

MECHANICAL / INTERACTIVE

In the same way that interactive exhibits are fun and memorable, donor recognition can be too!

Gears are a popular motif in this regard. The first image (Grateful Gears) is from an installation at the Kentucky Science Center, while the second is from the Madison Children's Museum.

INTERESTING MATERIALS

Sometimes the design element that gets people to stop and actually read the donor names are the unusual materials that the donor recognition piece is made of. If the materials relate to the institution itself, so much the better!

This first image comes from the San Francisco Food Bank

The next is from the Museum Center at 5ive Points, in Cleveland Tennessee which has a strong history of copper mining. So this intricate donor recognition piece is made from copper!

I love this clever use of miniature doors and windows at the Kohl Children's Museum. You can open doors and windows to reveal additional information about donors.

The last entry from this section is the truly striking three-dimensional "Donor Tree" from the Eureka Children's Museum in the UK.

DIGITAL DONOR DEVICES

As with all museum installations, digital technology plays an increasing role --- even in Donor Devices.

One unit that stood out was this digital donor recognition device at the National Historic Trails Center that solicits donations in real-time and puts up digital "rocks" on the rock wall screen of different sizes --- depending on the size of your donation, of course! A really neat idea that beats a dusty old donation box, hands down.

As I mentioned earlier, these images are really the tip of the iceberg. So please check out the entire PDF of all the images I received by heading over to the "Free Exhibit Resources" section of my website.

Also, if you have some other really good examples of donor recognition installations or devices, feel free to contact me and email them along, and I can share them in future ExhibiTricks posts.

Don't miss out on any ExhibiTricks posts! It's easy to get updates via email or your favorite news reader. Just click the "Sign up for Free ExhibiTricks Blog Updates" link on the upper right side of the blog.

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Thursday, November 19, 2015

I love real time data visualization websites! In addition to being a perfect blend of science, art, and technology, the web-sights provide a soothing thrum of information that I find mesmerizing and relaxing. I also think these sites are great inspiration for museum/exhibit/design ideas.

Some of my favorite real time data sites are listed below:

Wind Map gives a real time visualization of wind speeds in the U.S. It's like a giant video info graphic! A more three-dimensional view of wind around the entire globe is available at the earth website (pictured at the top of this post.)

Line of Sight provides a way for you to track satellites and other human-created space materials flying over your current location.

While you are up in the air, check out planefinder.net a sight that lets you pick out the location of commercial aircraft during their flights.

Coming back to Earth, you can track tectonic activity by seeing the geographic locations of active earthquakes and volcanoes at this site, or view National Weather Service satellite data, including infrared, visible light, and water vapor views.

Finishing up on the terrestrial side, EarthCam is a website that lets you easily choose and view real time webcam feeds from interesting places around the world.

I'll finish out this post with two digital "eye candy" sites. Tweetping gives you real time data mapping of tweets around the world, while Google Trends Hot Searches gives you a constantly scrolling feed of current trending searches on the popular site.

I hope clicking to these sites gives you some inspiration and enjoyment! Did we miss any of your favorite real time data sites? Let us know about them in the "Comments" section below!

Don't miss out on any ExhibiTricks posts! It's easy to get updates via email or your favorite news reader. Just click the "Sign up for Free ExhibiTricks Blog Updates" link on the upper right side of the blog.

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Tuesday, November 10, 2015

As if running a museum/exhibit/design blog wasn't filling a very specialized niche, I also co-run a blog in an even more rarefied niche, called "Museum People's Tattoos."

It really is a funny small museum world. When I saw my friend Beth Redmond-Jones'
awesome Manta Ray tattoo (pictured above) on Facebook, I jokingly
suggested that we start a blog called "Museum People's Tattoos."

As the blog intro states: "Many museum folks have a love for tattoos—their cultural
significance, their artistic quality, their documentation of the natural
world, and some, just for their own personal meaning. For years, we
have talked about tattoos, the ones we want, the design, the stories
behind them, and the artists who create them ... "

I really love reading about the tattoos and the stories behind them on
the blog. And isn't that what museums are about --- stories and stuff?

Don't miss out on any ExhibiTricks posts! It's easy to get updates via email or your favorite news reader. Just click the "Sign up for Free ExhibiTricks Blog Updates" link on the upper right side of the blog.

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Monday, November 2, 2015

We brought the museduino to ASTC and you’ll never believe what happened next!

I’ve always wanted to open a post with that, although I should have begun by thanking Paul for the generous invitation to guest blog at ExhibiTricks. I’m writing from Albuquerque, NM, where in addition to being a professor of Media Arts & Technology at New Mexico Highlands University, I run a small, semi-official lab called the CTDL (Cultural Technology Development Lab) with 5 fabulous collaborators. We hide out in a room behind the Mars Rover exhibit at the New Mexico Museum of Natural History & Science, devising solutions to make exhibits robust, less expensive, more open, and easier to update & repair. Bring us a problem- small museums, larger museums, national parks, libraries, NGOs; and we‘ll come up with something along the proof-of-concept to finished piece continuum.From this lair comes the museduino, an open-source kit for building robust electronic-based interactive exhibits. Its history lives here and here on Medium, and its schematics, PCB files, tutorials and projects live on WordPress and Github. In this post, I’ll write about our first public rollout, at an ASTC pre-conference workshop on October 17th, 2015.

Museduino pre-conference workshop at ASTC

We were thrilled to have a workshop filled with 12 engaged participants from around the US, Canada, and even Malaysia (we were also handed a 13-person waiting list with no contact information! Please get in touch, waitlisters!) Experience ranged widely - from “I’ve designed my own PCBs”, to “none, but but very enthusiastic”. This diversity is welcome, and why there are four of us in any workshop with more than 6 people.

We began with an introduction on why we care about open hardware for exhibits. Pretty much everyone nodded along while we addressed issues around maintenance, cost, and the need for rapid prototyping and in-house development whenever possible. Rianne and Miles demonstrated museduino projects for Acadia National Park and The Carlsbad Museum, to show pre- and post-museduino implementation.

Miles setting up the servo motor demo

Fewer cables! Faster data!

No voltage drop!

Every workshopper was able to set up their museduino kit to extend the pin footprint of the arduino board to an LED. Each table then added a switch, in order to see how the satellite boards could be as far as 30 meters (100 ft) from the main shield with no visible sensor/actuator delay or voltage drop. This is veryimportant if you are trying to cover a lot of distance.

Museduino shield with a satellite board & LED

When it was time for group projects, we handed out motors, motion sensors, photoresistors, flex sensors, speakers and many LEDs. The group below designed & built (in 45 minutes) a proof-of-concept for a timed-running exhibit; visitors run a distance of ~80 feet; IR Sharps (infrared sensor) sense where they are in the “race”, giving encouragement and collecting data along the way. This version played a victory tune at the finish line.

Rianne setting up an IR sharp detection with a 30 ft cable

Encourage Post-Prototype Thinking

Maker-based learning was a major theme at ASTC this year (perhaps it is every year, but this was my first time attending the full conference). While maker/tinker/hacker/spaces may have varied pedagogical and logistical approaches, when it comes to electronics and microcontrollers, open source and arduino-based boards reign. What better platform to build a robustifying system for, than the one that young makers grow up learning? Our goal was to allow makers to have an accessible solution available when their tinkering project moves out of the prototype stage and in to a working long term stage.

The Museduino shield works for most microcontrollers that use the Uno pin configuration (there’s a list in the blog post & WP site); we’re developing an even larger shield & satellite system for those of you that absolutely must use a Mega.

Don't miss out on any ExhibiTricks posts! It's easy to get updates via email or your favorite news reader. Just click the "Sign up for Free ExhibiTricks Blog Updates" link on the upper right side of the blog.

P.S. If you receive ExhibiTricks via email (or Facebook or LinkedIn) you will need to click HERE to go to the main ExhibiTricks page to make comments or view multimedia features (like videos!)